Ever since the appearance of my Repertory in print many of my friends who use it have urged me tor write out my own method of using a Repertory. I realize that it is a most difficult undertaking, but shall attempt to explain my methods. I doubt not but most careful prescribers will find that they are working in a similar manner.
    The use of the Repertory in a homœopathic practice is a necessity if one is to do careful work. Our Materia Medica is so cumbersome without a Repertory that the best prescriber must meet with only indifferent results.
    After the case has been properly taken according to Hahnemann's rules it is ready for study. I do not intend to offer in this manner the ordinary rubrics, because all know them so well. A case that is well taken and ordinarily full will show morbid manifestations in sensitiveness to many surroundings, such as weather, heat and cold, also in the desires and aversions, mental symptoms and the various regions of the body.
    When I take up a full case for study, I single out all the expressions that describe the general state, such as the aggravations and ameliorations of the general state of the patient or of many of his symptoms. I next consider carefully all his longings, mental and physical, all the desires and aversions, antipathies, fears, dreads, etc. Next I look for all the intellectual perversions, methods of reasoning, memory, causes of mental disturbances, etc. All these I arrange in form together, in order to set opposite each one all remedies in corresponding rubrics as found in the Repertory. By the cancellation process it will soon be seen that only a few remedies run through all these symptoms, and therefore only a few are to be carefully compared in order to ascertain which one of all these is most like the particular symptoms not yet lined up to be considered as the first ones have been considered. Hahnemann teaches in the 153rd paragraph that we are to give particular attention to such symptoms as are peculiar and characteristic. He teaches also that the physician must pay his earnest attention to the patient. Now if these two things are duly considered, it will be seen that Hahnemann's idea was that a characteristic symptom is one that is not common to disease but one that characterizes the patient. All the first lot of symptoms singled out for a more comprehensive view are such as characterize the patient, and are predicated of the patient himself. By treating a portion of the symptoms in this way we have reduced the list of possible remedies to a few or perhaps only one. As it is necessary to consider the totality of the symptoms for a basis of the homœopathic prescription, it is now necessary to examine all the rest of the symptoms in order to ascertain how these few remedies correspond with all the particulars.
    It may be said that the above is only routine work and everybody does it just that way. True, but after so much has been accepted the most intricate problems come up. To work out a well-rounded case is the simplest part of Repertory work, but when one-sided cases appear and when the patient states his symptoms in language that cannot be found in provings the case is far different. The record of the patient should stand as nearly as possible in his own language. From an extensive correspondence and many years of teaching graduates, I have come to the conclusion that it is a difficult matter for many to know when the record of symptoms contains the possibilities of a curative prescription. Many cases are presented with no generals and no mental symptoms—absolutely no characterizing symptoms—only the symptoms common to sickness. When a successful prescription is made on such symptoms it is scarcely more than a "lucky hit". It cannot be classed as scientific prescribing. Many records are presented with pages of vague description and one keynote that has served as a disgraceful "stool pigeon" to call forth a failure from many doctors.
        Unless the symptoms that characterize the patient are brought out in the record the physician should not be surprised at a failure. The remedy must be similar to the symptoms of the patient as well as the pathognomonic symptoms of his disease in order to cure.